The Art of Getting What You Want
by tFantasyFan
Summary: Nami is the master of figuring things out. It all goes her way from there.


_Pairing: Nami/Sanji/Usopp or some other combination of the three. Just sayin'._

_Disclaimer: I disclaim._

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Nami thinks it perfectly sensible that she is the first one to figure it out. She's a woman, and a damn smart one at that- which in her opinion makes her more inclined to untangle the complex puzzle that is (or has been) an emotional affair. Or two, or three, or maybe technically six, but it takes her a while to get around to the more complicated parts.

Even to her, it comes with time: in doses of looks from across the deck, gazes following invisible trails that lead out the galley door- to the crow's nest, to the lower deck, to the side of the ship that's been claimed for fishing. They meet halfway most times, Sanji and Usopp, and she thinks that they may as well get down to business right there, and she feels relieved about it for some odd reason, and then her stomach burns (jealousy, which she won't say) and she isn't sure what to make of it because she's not sure who it's over.

And so Nami begins the process of realization as an emotional voyeur. The kitchen has never seen so much of her and she has never seen quite so much of them- it isn't always running and shrieking, it isn't always sopping hearts (though there is a good deal of both of those in the long run). They are made of quiet conversation about any number of things, though it takes her a while being there to see it happen.

Sanji spins, he dotes, he reminds her that she is beautiful between meal preparations and he means every word, and Usopp never disagrees about the fact. But he's more than happy to remind her, without talking once, in any number of places, that she's also smart and quick and sane and he'd be lost without her. And both of them make her think that they'd all be lost without her, not just for loss of a navigator.

That's about the time that she finds them, a real discovery that she can't manage to map. She wishes that she could because the sooner they're all there, the better it's going to be.

And she's never been the type to begrudge herself for wanting anything- there are a lot of things to want, a lot to have, and apparently people can be on that list, too.

Usopp's fingers, the clever ones, the ones nearly as talented as Sanji's in deft and delicate movement, shake whenever she sits down next to him. Sanji leans over him to hand her a drink- lingers, just a little, and she catches his fingers taking it. He blinks, maybe swallows a little before smiling and whirling away- he pauses very briefly to set down the iced tea Usopp asked for before continuing on his way much more merrily. Usopp shivers when Sanji leans over him- when she brushes her fingers against his, too, it spreads all over before he buries it talking about the enormous fish he'd caught earlier (that one she'd seen and it was more of a lightweight, but she feels indulgent).

Nami thinks that it makes sense for Usopp to be the second one who figures it out.

* * *

He's just about to start giving Kabuto a bit of a tune-up when the rain starts. This effectively puts a damper on his plans and he swears under his breath as he's putting supplies away- and around that time is when it occurs to Usopp that he's in his workshop, which merits some pause.

Nami, it seems, has been waiting for just such a pause and takes the chance to make her presence known with a snicker. The Clima Tact is out and assembled and she's smirking like a little kid- he half expects her to stick her tongue out and take off running. Instead she steps- no. He reconsiders his word choice, mind churning a million alternatives because this, words and capturing the moment, he was made to excel in. Nami saunters in, she spills over the threshold like a powerful wave and a silent answered prayer and closes the door behind her.

This should be more of a warning sign than he takes it as, and on any other day he'd already be running, but she just so happens to look exquisite- priceless, golden, and of course she uses up all the words that are the most valuable- when she's wet; sticking clothes, hair down, up to no good. Any other day but today, or maybe this week, because he's found himself with a lot of awareness set aside for her recently. The way she moves, her quick fingers (his are still tingling from where they touched), how she tucks her hair behind her ears, soft and female and he forgets that she could kick his ass six ways to Sunday when she sits in the kitchen next to him.

He, of course, doesn't think about Sanji for a moment at that- not at all.

Not at all.

Nami takes a step forward and she is beautiful, but then he remembers that he is also blinking rain out of his eyes, and maybe thirty percent of his gunpowder is now ruined.

"N-Nami," he blusters out in his best no-nonsense tone- before reverting to one of his whiniest. "Nami, why the hell did you do that while I was working? I mean, it's a pretty good prank idea and I'm glad you're thinking of initiating war with a master- very ambitious of you, I like it- but you have to remember that they're always better when they don't ruin a man's workplace or get water all over his gunpowder. You even got caught in the backlash-"

"Usopp." She interrupts him- he's not as offended as he could be, because he gets interrupted a lot. This time he actually bothers to shut up and pay attention, though, so he's starting to feel that this might be a momentous occasion. Her voice is commanding with soft undertones of something- something- he doesn't have words for that, actually, but something in him knows it exactly and his heart picks up the pace. Another step closer, or maybe she's been taking them while he was distracted because she feels very, very close all of a sudden.

"Th-that's still not an answer," he interjects. It's getting a hell of a lot harder to talk here; he wonders if she added something to the rain.

Familiar annoyance settles on her features and she plants her hands on her hips- he could probably write novels about those hips, but maybe another time- and huffs a little. It's a nervous huff, one that usually ends up turning into a completely nervous tone because he reciprocates it.

Her voice wavers for half of a second, a quarter of a second, maybe he's imagining it because then it is business-like. "I'm going to kiss you." Matter-of-factly, determined. "And because I'm the one making the first move, and this is all partially your fault anyway, I'm obligated to do it however I want to do it." The smirk stretching across her face at that finds him terrified. "I thought the rain was a nice touch."

She doesn't give him the time to properly flee or stutter or have a nosebleed, because suddenly she is in his lap, pushing his nose out of the way and kissing him like she said she would. He'd half-wondered if she was bluffing, but apparently this wasn't the day for it. Kissing back properly is a feat hard to accomplish when one is brain-dead, but he figures the mechanics of it from the blueprints she's setting out- and then she pulls away with another grin, a little smug and looking just shy of giddy.

"That wasn't so bad, was it?"

"It depends on how much you charge me."

Nami flicks him on the nose, expression flat and unimpressed, moves in for another kiss and he is very careful to note that she didn't answer him.

Things continue in this manner for a good while, possibly hours- or that might just be his mind getting the better of him, because he could probably say it's been days and still feel accurate. There are fingers under his bandana, running over one of his overall straps; and it's not to say that he's not enjoying this immensely or that he isn't interested in exactly where this seems to be heading, but he picks that hand off of his overalls and holds it for a second. There's a moment of pause where he reflects that her hands are smaller than he thought they'd be and who knows what Nami is thinking because he's not looking her in the eye yet- what's the right way to say that he's been thinking about this kind of thing for a good while? Not just the parts where touching is involved, but the rest of it, too- the parts with talking, laughing, sitting next to each other, even not talking at all which was where he'd figured out that this is all very much over his head.

And that this feels very right, in the way things sometimes do- but at the same time it's a little off. The shot is lined up, but it hasn't been fired. The rain comes to subtle halt, leaving him alone with her and their breathing and his own almost-there feeling that he can't quite overlook. This isn't the kind of thing where honesty is relative, is it? He squeezes her hand and she squeezes back.

"Just wait," she says, voice quiet and very patient and a little afraid he won't. "Just wait."

And she understands exactly what the problem is because she has it, too, and even if it's not quite the same for her as it is for him, it's something. Possibly among the last things he'd ever expected and nowhere near anything he'd ever actually seen coming- but luckily he's gotten used to that kind of thing since joining this crew. So he hugs her and she hugs back, and he kisses her again- just so she knows that he definitely wants her, too. All the wanting in the world, and he feels selfish for it, but not enough to try not to.

He doesn't think about Sanji now, either.

Or maybe a little bit, but it has nothing to do with this, of course. Nami's face tells him he isn't fooling anyone.

* * *

"Navigator-san is off collecting," is how it begins for Sanji- bringing a cup of coffee out to dear Robin-chan and a refreshing glass of fruit juice for his other goddess, who is unfortunately no longer on deck.

"Collecting, Robin-chan?"

Her smile is mysterious as ever, knowing something he doesn't, since she always really does. "She asked me to inform you that you can find her with Longnose-kun."

And it's not to say that he doesn't explicitly trust his beautiful Nami-san- or the Longnose, he'll throw in there- but of course it isn't any trouble to very quietly approach the workshop to check on things. A small wisp of childlike jealously flits across the surface of his emotions- maybe Usopp is the reason she's been coming into the galley so often, after all- but he carefully sorts it away, because jumping to conclusions is stupid.

The door opens without a sound and he sticks his head in. There's water everywhere, on the floor, the furniture, Nami-san is straddling Usopp and of course nothing is out of the ordinary, why was he so-

Sanji does a double-take.

Their clothes are practically hanging off of them, wet and cold and irrelevant, really, he's invading their privacy, except he can't bring himself to stop staring and turn away like he should. Usopp's hand is on Nami-san's waist, they're both panting a little while they look at each other- and the look they're giving. His mouth feels very dry, and there's an illogical and surging fear that his cigarette will light him on fire. That hand travels up and down while he watches, slowly, with reverence he can find a small part of himself willing to be proud of- the other parts are on fire, jealous and flushed and thinking he's always liked those hands, and he's always always liked every part of Nami-san, but her face is looking especially radiant today, the way it's lit up.

She plants a kiss to Usopp's nose, more a gentle tigress than ferocious, and he loves that about her. Usopp turns all shades of red and stutters a little and ends his nerves by kissing her full on the lips, and he loves that, too, which catches him a little off-guard but doesn't lessen the effect.

A helpless sort of moan gets strangled in his throat and they turn to him with only a little bit of surprise, half-lidded eyes and parted lips and- and he should really leave because that's a hell of a lot harder to turn away from than anything else-

"Sanji," Usopp says simply to his retreating back. He's using the tone he gets when he suddenly finds out something important in the middle of a fight, something he can't figure out yet, and stupid shit that he is, Sanji stops. Stops without looking back because the first glimpse he caught is still catching up to him. He knows exactly why Usopp would- he's always known that much, of course, and suddenly he knows exactly why Nami-san would as well- why she is, and they are.

And it's two very unique punches to the stomach, a writhing mass of resentment and guilt and regretting not being straddled by those legs, having an arm or a leg or one side of his face under that stroking hand, having those eyes aimed at him, dark and heavy and possessive. Then Nami-san echoes the name, just as breathless but ten times more certain of why she's saying it:

"Sanji-kun."

And he turns, has to turn, and Nami-san's fingers are going through Usopp's hair, and his hand is still exactly where it was and the sight of them may or may not have Sanji completely transfixed. Usopp looks at him briefly, brow furrowed in something he can't quite calculate, and glances back up at Nami-san with an unspoken question on his face; he never really has to ask out loud with them.

Nami-san reads him and grins- oh god, she smiles, eyes almost closed, light and beautiful and just a touch childish, that smile that they almost never see, and her face tells stories of how she'd been waiting for that the entire time. Sanji thinks that his lungs might just be melting. Usopp blinks, smiles back in exactly the same way, which is when Sanji doesn't just think, he knows.

They turn to him like children who found out how to cheat the most impossible-seeming game and each stretch an arm in his direction (those fingers, that hand). For a few long moments he's reduced to staring and feeling the floor dissolve beneath his feet (it isn't fair that they can both look at him like that, not at all); and then he's wondering if he's supposed to find a way to kiss them both at once or if he could get to them one at a time (Nami-san first, of course) without anyone feeling put-out, and where exactly is he going to fit in this arrangement anyway?

Smiles sharpen.

"I guess we could just start without him," Usopp muses without looking away. His hand is- both their hands are shaking a little, afraid in a way that doesn't involve fake diseases or hiding behind trees, and it's just always so damn easy to see that about them. Afraid he won't, afraid he doesn't want, even if he can also tell that they're all thinking about exactly how much they want, right now.

That he'll be able to kick him for saying that later proves to be even more inspiring.

"We might just have to." Nami-san says, other hand carefully trailing up Usopp's free shoulder. Neither of them miss how it grips there, reassuring and seeking reassurance all at the same time.

Sanji takes one more long drag- it might just be an excuse to keep watching them for a second, but he's never going to admit either way- and the exhale is a sigh of a lot of fondness and just a little exasperation, but he smiles and walks up to those hands.

He takes a brief time to muse about how it is that the ones that are his are always the ones pulling him into shit. Things soon become hazy and very distracting, so it doesn't last long.


End file.
